As editorial and opinion director of The San Diego Union-Tribune, I’m responsible for both the journalism in our section and the decisions underpinning its publication. And I do mean “our section.” A big part of it is the letters to the editor and longer op-eds and essays from community members like you.
For as long as I’ve been working at this newspaper, and that’s nearly 20 years, the Union-Tribune has published one or two editorials, an editorial cartoon, a syndicated column and eight to 10 150-word letters to the editor almost every day on its editorial page. On the days we have an op-ed page, we run two or three 750-word pieces from the community.
In recent years, we’ve had that second page on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays and two extra pages on Sundays — but just one page on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. As the novel coronavirus pandemic worsened in March, I faced having no op-eds from the community for half the week at a time when the community was crying out for news it could trust from expert, experienced voices.
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That wasn’t going to work. So I turned our editorial page over to those voices — to doctors, here and in Italy; to health and infectious disease experts; to others who could write with clarity and authority about the havoc being wrought. Our new community opinion editor, Laura Castañeda, joined us just as our staff began working from home. She has made the most of this opportunity to make sense of the story of the century.
In the past our team has run three op-eds on two or three different subjects on our op-ed pages; that’s how many fit on a page at 750 words apiece. But now we’re publishing three related op-eds every day, timed for greatest impact with the most planning we can muster. This has made for a far more powerful, informative and useful opinion section. We’ve gone deep on issues related to health, mental health, Tijuana, online education, restaurants, youth, the African American community, the LGBTQ community and the arts. Today we have a package on farmworkers.
This has meant fewer editorials from us, but that’s OK. They can be more impactful now because we get to spend more time choosing our subjects and using our platform to the greatest effect. We urged Coronado and Oceanside officials to close their beaches when they were the only cities in the county that had not, and they acquiesced the same day. We suggested facial coverings should be mandatory countywide, and the county agreed that day. We have advocated for homeless people and residents of long-term care and jail inmates, and extra precautions have followed.
We’ve also had less space for letters in the newspaper, but not fewer letters. We still publish them on our website, and they are among our most popular online offerings. They’re also easy to find. Just visit letters.uniontrib.com. Online is where our business is ultimately headed — and sooner than you might expect. The Tampa Bay Times just announced a switch to only two days a week of print. We still plan on being a seven-day-a-week publication, but it depends partly on business trends beyond our control.
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Coping with coronavirus
The pandemic sweeping the globe has changed everyone’s lives, and we want to hear how it’s changed yours. If you’d like to write an op-ed for us on a subject related to the virus, make it 700-750 words and send it to us with your name and a phone number so we can reach you.
The industry is nosediving as print advertising disappears. It’s a longtime trend but worse now because no one will gather for months and no one is spending much money and 30 million people have filed for unemployment in the past six weeks. As with other industries, some newspapers won’t recover or will resume on the other side of this as shells of themselves. I follow the industry closely as the incoming president of the national Society of Professional Journalists, and I tell people all the time, “A free press isn’t free. Journalism costs money. Less journalism costs society.”
With such high stakes, I am grateful for each and every person who decides that the Union-Tribune is worth their twin investments of money and time, especially when both are so valuable now. We will keep working to put out the best opinion section we can for all our readers. And it is one of the best. Don’t take my word for it!
In case you hadn’t heard, the Union-Tribune received the top award from the California News Publishers Association several weeks ago, as the best large newspaper in the state. The judges said part of what they appreciated about the U-T was its “solid” opinion section and the work of our two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist, Steve Breen.
Our section changed because of this pandemic, and it will surely change again, but its mission is constant: To provoke thought, thoughtfully. I hope it does for you, for many, for years to come. Thanks for reading. Please let me know what you think.
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Hall is on Twitter, @SDuncovered, and can be reached via email at mattew.hall@sduniontribune.com.
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How the coronavirus pandemic has changed The San Diego Union-Tribune's Opinion section - The San Diego Union-Tribune
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